AWADmail Issue 203

A distinctive characteristic of Peter Falk's TV police lieutenant "Columbo"
was the Parthian shot he sent to a likely suspect. It was usually delivered
while Colombo had started to leave with his hand on the doorknob. It was
delivered in the form of a question that let the suspect know that Colombo
knew the suspect had done the dirty deed he was being questioned about.

How eager I was this morning to share this tale with my nine-year-old son
whose teachers describe him as an 'absent minded professor', so full of
potential and delight - if only he would focus more and apply himself. I
comfort myself with that description and envision him someday walking the
quads of Oxford as an esteemed professor, pushing up his glasses as he
ponders why he was heading in a northerly direction. Then I realized that
this life lesson is for all of us.

I read a description this past year of the Amish and their work ethic. Each
task that is set before them is taken on with quiet delight. There is no
hurrying through to get to the next task, to cross off one more item from
a long things 'to do' list. They apply themselves, focusing deeply, pleased
to do what they are doing well. With my harried life, with our harried lives,
we would all do well to take this lesson to heart. Take pleasure in doing
one thing well, pare down the endless 'to do' list and focus on the task at
hand. The eye of the bird lies before us, if only we would look for it.

The arrow maker reminded me of how I felt when I saw "Lord of the Rings".
I could not get into it and could not see what the "hoopla" was all about.

What turned me off was the scene where all the archers are ready to let go
of their arrows. Some guy jumps up and yells" Hold your fire!", then after
a while he yells "Fire" and they all release their arrows. Some anachronism!

As far as I know, "Fire" came about with guns and gunpowder when you put
the brand on to the wick.

I think, more specifically, a "fletcher" only puts on the feathers. This
comes from reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and talking to a
friend of mine surnamed Fletcher.

A number of you wrote with similar questions, but back then things
weren't so specialized. There
wasn't an occupation in which one's sole purpose in life was to
feather an arrow.

A fletcher is an arrowsmith, one who makes an arrow, from French flèche
(arrow). Fletcher sprouted a backformation, the verb "to fletch" which
means to add a feather to an arrow. Fletch acquired a sense different
from its parent word, from confusion with the word fledge (to feather).
It's the same fledge that appears in terms such as full-fledged and
fledgling.

If you go back far enough, the words feather, fledge, fletcher all
derive from the same Indo-European root pleu- (flow). And that's the
remarkable thing about language -- how one word could diverge into so
many different senses. That pleu- also gave us plutocracy (government
by the wealthy), from the idea of overflowing riches.

Re your question - "Why bull's eye? Why not a cat's eye or a dog's eye?"
I suspect it's more to do with the size of the eye and the height of the
animal -- it's possible for a standing human and a standing bull to look
each other directly in the eye, whereas to look a cat or dog in the eye
involves getting down on all fours, or lifting the cat or dog. And bulls
have more of a tendency to stare (or at least appear to stare) at humans
than cats or dogs, although perhaps that is because of the latent fear we
have that a bull might start to charge.

One might also posit that the bull's-eye was a literal reference. After all,
if a hunter is using a bow and arrow in an attempt to bring down a bull (or
an animal the size of a bull), the best chance of doing so without having
to subsequently outrun an enraged animal would be a direct hit to the eye
(and thence to the brain). I can even imagine early Britons using the
skulls from their past dinners for target practice.

It is easy to see why Roger Ascham resorted to Greek for his new word. Latin,
the more customary source for scientific names, provides a well know word
for "archer": sagittarius (sagitta means arrow) which is also the name for
the constellation. But when it comes to "archery", Latin flunks the
simplicity test: sagitta aliquod petere, literally "to attack something with
an arrow".

When I was a boy, I raised tropical fish. I always dreamed of owning (but
never did) a Siamese archer fish, the scientific name for which is Toxotes
Jaculatrix (in my day the second word was jaculator, but somehow it became
feminine over the years). Toxotes in Greek means archer and Jaculator in
Latin means thrower. The person responsible for the nomenclature apparently
couldn't make up his mind between shooting an arrow and throwing something.
Perhaps there was no Greek or Latin word for "spitter', since this is how
the archer commonly brings down its prey, i.e. insects hovering over the
water. The archer fish directs a jet of water at the insect and stuns it,
and waits directly below with mouth open, anticipating lunch. It's
fascinating.

Final note: both Greek and Latin have the same word for poison for an arrow:
toxicon.

Have you fallen asleep at the yew switch? There is so much more to discuss.
I was surprised that you didn't trace "toxin" (from the Greek "toxikon" for
the yew extract used as an arrow poison) to toxon. Or mention that the Latin
for yew, "taxus", shares the Greek etymon since this tree provided wood for
the archer's bow as well as poison for his arrow. And that we now have many
modern taxus-derived words, such as the cancer drugs Taxol, tamoxifen and
Taxotere, all produced from a once-threatened American yew.

Of course, the ultimate bull's eye was in Errol Flynn's Robin Hood when he
split the perfectly centered arrow of his opponent. I think it was on
"Mythbusters" where they spent all day trying to duplicate the feat, but
only managed, after scores of attempts, to splinter a bit off the target
arrow. Archery genius Howard Hill is said to have done it for the picture,
but that has never been verified, as far as I know.

From: Eric Shackle (eshackleATozemail.com.au)
Subject: Best gold

Two hundred and forty-six best golds have just been awarded to athletes
competing in the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. I'd like to give two
more to the editors of The Modesto Bee in California and The Courier-Mail
in Brisbane, Australia, for their great new websites, making it easy for
newspaper writers and readers to exchange ideas. Further details can be
found in my free e-book.

Compared to the drama of words, Hamlet is a light farce. -Anatoly Liberman,
professor (1937- )